Thanksgiving 2013

This year we had Thanksgiving with my parents and siblings. I managed to completely forget that my husband’s work gives everyone a turkey for Thanksgiving. Once he told me he’d received one I offered to make the turkey for our dinner and then also proceeded to offer to make several other items that I like my recipe best for. haha. 🙂

Since I don’t normally care for turkey at all we decided to try out the highly acclaimed Alton Brown brining method. As per usual I skimmed the recipe but I didn’t fully read it so I missed the part where you make the brine a day before you want to brine so it can cool to refrigerator temperatures. We fixed that step by just dumping a bag of ice into the bucket with the brine. We also used the cooler and thermometer method for thawing the turkey which got us most of the way there. The first day we put the turkey in the cooler I didn’t account for just how cold it was in the garage and the turkey was basically still in the freezer. We used the cool water and ice pack method for the final few hours to get the last of the insides thawed.

The morning before Thanksgiving I woke up a bit perky; and early considering I’d been up until 2 am chatting with my brother who was in town from North Carolina. I decided to help myself out and made up the key lime pie. I know when you think autumnal pies key lime has to be the first one on your list. 😉 But really, it’s my favorite – mostly because of the graham cracker crust and the meringue and the tangy awesome of key lime juice.

Thanksgiving morning I went and worked out and then Chris and I spent an hour or so cutting up all the vegetables and ensuring we had everything we needed to cook at my parents’ house. We loaded up the truck with all the food and our dogs and we drove on over with the turkey still in its bucket squeezed in between my feet in the cab. 🙂

Look at that bird all ready for the oven. Amazingly this 18-20 lb turkey fit in my small roasting pan. Which is good, because the Alton Brown recipe calls for starting the bird at 500°F and we didn’t have another roasting pan rated for that high a temperature.

As a last minute add-on we decided to make some cranberry dipping sauce from the Alton Brown “Romancing the Bird” episode. When we were watching him make it Chris said man that looks good. And it was!

There was one food mishap when Bruce didn’t see his dinner bowl and stepped right in it, upending all his food into my parents’ hallway. He, of course, wasn’t about to let anyone else get his dinner and proceeded to hoover it right up off the floor. 🙂

The turkey timed out perfectly (~3 hrs total) and looked pretty good when it came out of the oven.

We also made up some root vegetables since Chris and I try to eat lots of veggies because we love them. 🙂 They got a little crispy on the grill – we ran out of oven space. I got inspired at the grocery store to try some edible flowers. Basically they taste exactly like marigolds smell, which I dunno, was a little odd. My niece summed it up as “horrible” which was pretty funny. 🙂

I didn’t slice the turkey, that task was left up to my dad and Chris. Reports from the kitchen were that the juices were flowing as the turkey was being sliced. This was definitely one of the most juicy turkeys I’ve ever had.

At the end of the day we were all pretty tired and worn out. Here’s two of the family resting, waiting to head home for the night. 🙂

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I am onto the crafting sprint to get everything done in time for Christmas.